So for those of you who follow the updates here, just wanted to let you know that I will be out this week on vacation. I will be on board the Carnival Elation, headed out towards Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico. :)
Your regular updates, and maybe a picture or two, will resume next week!
Please note: the moderation system is set up so that comments need to be approved before going live. If you have never posted a comment before, you’re going to have to wait till I get back for your comment to appear. Those of you who have already commented here are auto-approved. :)
Bobby Kotick CEO of Activision, now famous for his apparent hate of video games. He has said a lot things that would make any gamers blood boil, words like ‘when I first became CEO of Activison, my aim was to take all the fun out of making games’ would discourage anyone from working Activision and who could forgot his infamous quote regarding the MW2 price rise ‘if it were up to me i’d raise prices even higher. We must make him realise that treating his customers in horrible manners will not be tolorated and we must stop him before other companies decide to copy him.
Bobby Kotick has said some really dumb things, the above poorly formatted quotes being the most egregious examples. Quotes like this have gotten him vilified throughout the gaming community. A Google search for “Bobby Kotick” turns up his Wikipedia page first, but the other results are hilariously titled:
My particular favorite is the Ars Technica link that says “Bobby Kotick has opened his mouth again, if you were wondering where the smell of brimstone was coming from.”
Now I can understand where these people are coming from to a certain extent. He’s come to represent everything that’s wrong with the game industry, and with quotes like the above I’m not surprised. But perhaps because of this vilification, I’ve started to find some sympathy for the guy.
What gets me is the sense of personal injury that comes through in the paragraph quoted up above. It moves seamlessly from “if it were up to me i’d raise prices even higher” to “We must make him realise that treating his customers in horrible manners will not be tolorated”. I can’t figure this. Mr. Kotick has said some ridiculous things, but how exactly has he “mistreated his customers”? Activision-Blizzard is a game publisher. They publish games. They’ve published a lot of games that I’m really excited about. They’ve published games in some ways that I didn’t necessarily like (that was a lot of Guitar Hero games), but so has virtually every game publisher.
But every game publisher doesn’t have a Bobby Kotick at the helm mouthing off, do they?
Is Bobby Kotick a bad CEO? I have no idea. Activision seems to be a successful company, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s a good CEO—see Wall Street. But what does that matter to me? All that matters is the games.
It’s possible that Bobby Kotick’s influence may even be a negative one on the development studios that Activision owns. But boycotting Activision games, or spreading nasty rumors, or starting defamatory Facebook groups because of Bobby Kotick’s big mouth would be doing a disservice to the hardworking game developers that, for good or ill, threw in with him and with Activision for the long run.
Let the games, and the game developers, speak for themselves.
What I had expected to be 1 post has now become 4. For those just joining us, here is part one, part two, and part three.
I’ve been following Seth Godin’s blog for a long time now, and I’ve got a copy of his latest book which I’m trying to set aside the time to read. But yesterday he posted something that tied in to what I’d been discussing here for a while, in a post entitled Accepting Limits.
It’s absurd to look at a three year old toddler and say, “this kid can’t read or do math or even string together a coherent paragraph. He’s a dolt and he’s never going to amount to anything.” No, we don’t say that because we know we can teach and motivate and cajole the typical kid to be able to do all of these things.
Why is it okay, then, to look at a teenager and say, “this kid will never be a leader, never run a significant organization, never save a life, never inspire or create…”
Just because it’s difficult to grade doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taught.
This is a video that my mother, who works in children’s television, sent me a little while ago. She found it exceedingly powerful, as did I.
I was a bright kid, but I was never exactly a straight-A student. In kindergarden I took some standardized tests, and scored in the “highly gifted” bracket. When my parents received my test results they asked for advice on what to do—whether I should transfer to a new school, etc. The test administrators gave my parents what they later told me was the best advice they ever received about education, and that was this: ”No one has any idea what to do with highly gifted students. The educational system as it is now is designed to accomodate people who are average. People may tell you that they know what is best for your child, but no one knows for sure. Ultimately, you have to make the choices that you think are best for your child.”
I barely squeaked by in my high school classes with Cs and the occasional D—mostly because I wasn’t doing the homework. I had to make up a class in summer school every year, from 8th grade through 12th. In my junior year I went to see the school psychologist, who recommended that I be tested for ADD. I was whisked away to take a series of tests with a man named Dr. Colegrove, who I remember fondly to this day. When he was finished, he wrote up a report to send back to my parent’s saying basically, “Casey doesn’t have ADD—he’s just really bored.”
When I graduated high school I attended community college for a year and a half, took a very intense six month course to become a recording engineer, and then went to work. I bounced around the workplace trying to find the job that was right for me, and finally was lucky enough to be hired at my current company when I had basically no relevant experience (except for being a WoW player, which we have learned is more experience than it seems). Now I’m taking classes online for a BA in Marketing, and eagerly awaiting the day when all these general eds are finished so I can learn something interesting.
In the whole of my life I have never found anything in the American educational system that did not come from the determined, singular effort of either myself—to make my own learning—or the handful of brilliant teachers who were willing to break free of the “educational system” and engage me.
And why would I? I was just like every other kid. I would much rather be playing games.
Games are proving themselves to be the best way to teach, motivate and cajole the average teenager into doing something. Let’s make games that teach them to be leaders, to run organizations, to inspire, to create, and to save lives.
Apparently I’m not the only one who’s had this on my mind lately.
The Escapist just published an article entitled Technology Will Turn your Life Into A Game. It talks in some detail about how game design principles are being applied to corporate marketing. Examples are given, like the new Starbucks Gold Card, which lets you earn “experience points” by buying coffee, which earn you “level-ups” that grant you “new abilities” (like discounts, free drinks, free wi-fi, etc.). The privileges also expire if you don’t buy enough coffee.
Sound familiar? These are the same principles of addiction that were discussed in the Cracked article I linked yesterday.
Here’s what I’m taking away from this: Games have the power to make people do things. There are already hundreds of thousands of people out there who know about these principles, and are using them to make money. There’s only one industry that is founded on the idea of using these principles of addiction to create enjoyment, rather than just money—and that’s the game industry.
We, as conscientious members of the game industry, have a responsibility to look into ways to use these game design principles for GOOD, rather than for evil. To create games that educate the players, inform them, show them truths about the world and each other.
We need to fight back with educational games—and I’m not talking about “educational games” the way we’re used to thinking of them. I’m talking about turning our classrooms into a game the same way Starbucks has turned buying coffee into a game. I’m talking about abandoning letter grades, and teaching our kids with experience points and level-ups.
I’m talking about corporate games—internal systems in companies that encourage people to do their best work using game design principles.
I’m talking about games that encourage charitable behavior and volunteer work.
I’m talking about using game design principles to encourage young people to vote, to research local laws, and otherwise get involved with their community.
This is why I think gaming can change the world. And it’s the people who are in the game industry, who make games and who play them, who are going to change the world—because we’re the ones for whom gaming is more than just a way to make money.
I'm Casey Monroe, Community Analyst at Zynga, and former Head of Community and Content for Wowhead.com. These are my thoughts, and those of my closest friends, on the game industry. Opinions expressed here belong to the author alone.
RT @Justin_Marks_: Internet reactions from when Heath Ledger was cast as The Joker. And another reminder, never read the comments: http://t…11 hours ago
